how to learn "feel" and/or to ride well?

[daydreamer]

How on earth do you learn to feel and/or to ride effectively?!

Has anyone been taught this well?

About 5 months ago I started riding a share horse and discovered that to make him work nicely I had to really work hard with my stomach muscles, engage my bum and leg muscles oddly and not worry about my hands too much. I then feel much more in tune with the horse and as if I have that elusive "feel" (maybe!).

I have been what I call a riding school rider for about 15 years so have had a lot of lessons and a lot of different instructors yet noone has ever taught me to do what I am doing now. I had a couple of lessons recently after a break and my riding was awful!! I then realised if I stopped trying to get the horse to come round with my hands and sat in my odd self-taught way the horse immediately went properly. So why don't instructors teach this?! Or is it impossible to teach?

(sorry for the rant!! cookies if you got this far

)

 

[itsmyparty]

It sounds a bit like the Mary Wanless "bearing down" technique (which I've never really understood or been able to replicate as I ride like a muppet). I'd love to understand how to learn "feel" and ride like this. If you've managed that then well done and please explain more !!

 

[SouthWestWhippet]

Interestingly I was talking about this with my clients last night. I was saying that good riding in the main seems to me to be

1) Feeling what the horse is doing
2) Understanding what the feeling means
3) Knowing what to do about it (if anything)

It is very very difficult to teach 'FEEL'. Most riding instructors are caught in the difficult position of basically teaching at best bits of 2) and lots of 3) or even (with children particularly) just 3) on its own.

Feel comes from experience, practice and developing a deep, balanced, independant seat. Instructors can help you with techniques for this, but mostly it comes with hours in the saddle.

Most riders tend to balance to a greater or lesser degree 'off their hands' because they are not fit enough, confident enough or supple enough to balance themselves and control the horse off their seat. With riding schools, we mostly teach pleasure riders who only ride once or twice a week and never get enough riding in to develop their fitness and strenght to this level.

It maybe that now you have a share horse, you are developing the fitness to ride 100% independant of the reins which is why you are finding that you can suddenly get many more horses into an outline.

I have to say, that if you have discovered this 'on your own' you must have had some good, solid foundation teaching in the past that you have now, with the opportunity to build on your fitness and practice, been able to take forward to a new level.

JMO and CONGRATS, it is great when you start to "feel" - everything suddenly starts to fall into place doesnt it?

 

[kerilli]

umm, it is possible to learn feel... my trainer taught me it, a few years after a well known trainer had reduced me to tears or fury/frustration by saying "it's no good, i can't teach you feel!"
theres no guarantee that what you're doing now is absolutely correct... it may just have pressed that particular horse's buttons.
why is your way odd? if you aren't sitting comfortably and correctly, it might not work on most horses...
i rode a GP horse once, and really struggled to get it to canter, turned out it ignored leg aids (they just meant "more trot") and only cantered from a very pronounced seat-bone aid. made me feel and look like a right muppet till the penny dropped... then i could get flying changes etc.
the more i ride, the more i realise that poise is essential, that is what the top top riders have, they draw themselves up and look tall and elegant and keep themselves in beautiful carriage all the time, transitions etc never affect their balance, they never slouch or collapse... i think this is half the secret at least!

 

[LizGooch1]

I think being tuned in to how your horse is going ie if you sit this way the horse does this, is effective. I found by sitting on my bum and bearing down that the horse rounded his back by himself but like you i stumbled across it by accident! I think you can find a lot more about how to correctly ride a horse just by tuning in to what feels right when it clicks in to place. Trouble is just as you find one thing works somethign else goes out the window! But thats why i love riding, its never straight forward or easy

BTW def sounds like Mary Wanless, I've followed her approach for few years now, to me she is the nearest to teach/explain how to ride well..

 

[Ezme]

I always thought that the way to learn how to "feel" is ride lots of different horses. Especially a few on a true schoolmaster, as in one that will not do anything untill you have the aid exactly right. You'll spend most of the lesson going sideways or up but you learn so much in that split second it goes right, then you can tell the differece in other horses. I think i'm halfway there now but unfortuantly i havn't the money to ride remotely regularly at the moment!

 

[RachelFerd]

I wouldn't claim to have brilliant feel - far from that - but it's definitely improved over the years. I am not a 'natural' rider, so for me it has come through a combination of theoretical knowledge, and pracitcal experience.

the theoretical part came mainly from Heather Moffet, whose excellent book 'enlightened equitation' had a lot of information on the myth of feel, teaching you how to feel the horse using himself underneath you, how to time aids with the footfalls of the horse etc. You can take or leave her thoughts on bitting, seatsavers etc. etc. but the techinical info is really spot on. I also got a lot out of Sally Swift's centred riding book. Mary Wanless techniques are not for me - I get too tense and ride like a lump of steel, but they work for some.

However, you can't be thinking that much when you ride - you have to learn to react to a feeling straight away, without having to run through the thinking process - and that's where the practical experience comes in. Having lessons on schoolmasters of varying levels is the only way I managed it.

totally made up schoolmaster classifications...

Schoolmaster type 1 does it right, even if the rider gets it wrong - useful for learning 'what' you want to acheive, although doesn't teach you the 'how'.

Schoolmaster type 2 does it right, but only when you get it right - helps you put 2 + 2 together

Schoolmaster type 3 does it right, but only if you get it right, and will ride through the resistance - makes you put 2 + 2 together, and increases your feel for pressure and release, because you have to be able to do it effectively!

Ultimately it all boils down to pressure and release - how much and at what point!

I was fortunate enough to do work experience at a dressage yard when I was about 14 - they had a 'type 2' schoolmaster who made me realise what it is meant to feel like... it was a revelation for me. However, he was so different to my own horse back home, that it was still very hard to translate that feeling at all to my riding on my own horse. We got there, but we got there slowly, with the help of patient instruction.

Further on down the line, I started doing intensive training weeks at Huntley school of equitation. Unlikme most places who advertise 'schoolmaster' lessons on their decrepid ex medium horse, they let you ride their horses in group lessons, at normal prices, and are encouraged to treat them in the same way - identify the faults and try and improve on them - whether the horse is green and just broken, or whether it is competing at advanced medium, you are still expected to actually IMPROVE their way of going.

Again a total revelation for me, to go and get on a high level horse, and then rather than sit there enjoying it, think about what needs to be made better. This has increased my feel more than anything else, I think.

In one day there, I would be riding an ex PSG horse (suffers stiffness due to age, needs lots of elastic stretching work, but with sympathetic riding still manages temp changes etc), a current medium level mare who has a sense of humour over accepting a contact (get it right it feels fantastic, get it wrong and you have a sewing machine trot) an evasive but capable novice horse, an ex racehorse out of training 3 months, a hunting cob in the process of re-schooling - basically, the full spectrum of dressage schooling and capability - can't recommend it enough.. I am now confident enough to get on an unknown horse, make an assessment of it's capability and schooling, and then ride appropriate exercises that will actually go some way to improving it.

Apologies for a totally nonsensical post!!

 

[Natch]

I'd definately recommend that you find a mary wanless ride with your mind instructor, or at the very least read her books. Her teaching method should explain a lot about what you're doing and why it works or doesn't work, how it should feel etc.

She is one of the (IMO few) "good at feel" riders that have learnt it rather than knwon it intuitively; as she explains it, a lot of good riders just do something right but don't really know what it is they do right to be able to explain it to someone else.

I think you'd find it fascinating.